Thoughts In A Wandering Mind

I n this turn, let us talk about Pakista n or the partition which we witnessed   at nation al level and another partition which I saw at my state level. Pakistan - if you hear the name, it echoes the sound of an enemy state. It has become synonym to enemy for most of the Indians and we replace it with ‘ opposition ’ in the relevant context. Despite b eing neighbors , we had become levers for opposite forces at play for the last 70 years. The general narrative has been built around opposition ; discourse from politicians, media and every adult in the nation is to oppose or speak against Pakistan. I have been brought up in this environment and th e mind reflexes have been trained with treating Pakistan as an enemy nation for a lifetime. The incidents that have shaped this narrative also fall in same line - wars have been provoked and waged, terrorism has its ugly roo ts , a territory has been disputed   and entire nations' war machineries have been built on defe...

If unlawful migration is the reality of the times across the borders , there is another group of legal arrivals who come to seek education in U.S. I am talking about the international student group who comes to U.S. with immense hope and expectations from the top nation and educating themselves in worthy institutions. I already mentioned about the students in U.S. in an earlier post and I will talk about th e same group in this post . Before that let me tell you something personal – I have been staying with this group for the last 22 months or nearly 2 years and they have become my home away from home . If I could set the ball rolling in U.S. and if I could achieve anything from my stay in U.S., the re is a significant part played by these students or my extended family at the crucial stage of my life . I wasn’t able to leave them, nor did they attempt to stay away from me. This strong bond withstood the test of time for 20 crucial months which could have become a coun...